As we near the end of Q3 and the beginning of Amazon's peak season and Q4 tentpole events, it’s time for eCommerce brands to prepare for the upcoming surge in shopping activity. The next few months bring events like Prime Big Deal Days (Amazon October Prime Day), Black Friday, and Cyber Monday.
These three major eCommerce events leading up to the Christmas season present a great opportunity to attract potential customers with enticing deals and promotions and boost your Q4 sales. As we wait for Amazon to confirm the official dates for this year’s Prime Big Deal Days, we expect it to be in mid-October and last 48 hours. Cyber Week 2024 (Cyber 5) will last for five days from Thanksgiving (November 28th), including Black Friday (November 29th), to Cyber Monday (December 2nd).
Continue reading as we share our top 6 tips and tricks to prepare for Fall Prime Day and BFCM (Black Friday and Cyber Monday) by employing our Prime Day 2024 learnings, Q4 2023 findings, and proven tactics for growth.
Utilize Amazon Prime Day Insights for Q4
According to Pacvue Prime Day 2024 Benchmark Report, ad spending was up 26.3%, and CPC increased by 7.6%, signaling a more competitive environment. We encourage you to apply these insights to upcoming Q4 tentpole events by understanding that competition will be fierce, especially in the beauty category, and ad costs will be higher during these periods.
New-to-brand (NTB) customers were slightly lower during this summer’s Prime Day event (63% versus 67% in the previous year). This is still a significant figure well above the standard 45-50% NTB customers most brands see. Focus on capturing new customers during Fall Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday by offering strong discounts and promotions.
If we observe the return on ad spend (ROAS), it declined ahead of Prime Day before rebounding. It's important to maintain steady advertising even when ROAS drops during tentpole moments. Use brand awareness tactics to build up interest prior to big sales events.
Employ a Demand-Side Platform (DSP) Strategy
With the rising competition and advertising costs, it’s important to work on boosting your brand awareness before tentpole moments. Since CPC (cost-per-click) increases during Prime Day and Q4, you should focus on a cost-effective way to grow the pool of people interested in your products. A Demand-Side Platform (DSP) can help you target and retarget audiences at a more cost-effective awareness of CPM (cost-per-thousand).
Leading into Prime Day 2024, DSP ad spending was 135% up, with a 39% year-over-year increase. This signals brands are growing their investments in cost-effective channels before tentpole events. Increase your DSP ad spend early to build awareness and prospect potential customers before the sale days.
Start Your Awareness and Prospecting Campaigns
Prime Day 2024 showed the value of prospecting early to reach a wider audience before tentpole events. The same applies to Prime Big Deal Days, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, where pre-event awareness is critical to drive more effective sales.
Use Amazon Marketing Cloud data to identify patterns in consumer behavior and apply this information to build audiences with similar characteristics to those who have already interacted with your brand, or lookalike audiences. This is particularly useful for campaigns leading up to events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Specific lead-in and lead-out tactics can help you prepare on time for Q4 events and get ahead of competitors during high-traffic shopping days. Leading up to October Prime Day and BFCM, work on building retargeting pools, increasing brand awareness, using DSP for consideration and awareness, and utilizing AMC audiences to attract new-to-brand customers.
For a successful lead-out, you will want to keep your deal running to capture the attention of late-to-shop customers. At Blue Wheel, we had clients run post-Prime Day deals to reach the audience that may have felt excluded during the initial promotions. Maintain your Amazon deals throughout the end of each tentpole event. Apply them to your DTC site and engage your email lists to inform subscribers about the ongoing offers.
Prepare Your Amazon Holiday Ad Campaigns
Use our catalog merchandising checklist to prepare on time for the upcoming peak season on Amazon.
- Pull a bulk file ahead of holiday changes so that any changes in the account can be reverted in January.
- Ensure your campaigns are funded throughout each day. Remember that you also want to fund campaigns that are performing well.
- Adjust your bids and budgets before the holiday to ensure you get your desired placements.
- After you have made your bid changes for the holiday, you'll want to suspend optimizations so that your changes are not reversed and continue optimizations post-holiday.
- If you're selling holiday sets, ensure that you have a callout on your Amazon Store page.
Work on Your Content Strategy and Enticing Deals
You should work on detailed content planning ahead of Prime Big Deal Days and BFCM. Once you finalize Q4 budgets and revenue goals, immediately understand the products that need content updates and schedule accordingly. The next step is to confirm promo details and dates (priority/featured SKUs and promo types such as deals, coupons, etc.). Lastly, map out your assets and deliverables.
Your content strategy should consist of the following factors:
- Keyword updates
- Copy updates
- PDP image updates
- Storefront theme updates
- Storefront promo pages
According to Criteo, 93% of US customers consider discounts and offers crucial when deciding whether to purchase from a brand. Depending on your eligibility, Amazon allows you to offer deals, promotions, coupons, and Prime Exclusive Discounts.
Start on time by choosing products that will go on deals while ensuring your prices are competitive with other Amazon sellers. Your discounts should be clear, consistent, and value-based. Avoid confusing tiered promotions and offer value-driven deals that are easier to market and understand. We recommend having larger discounts applied to a wider selection of products.
You should run your discounts as long as possible. 2023 Q4 rewarded those that had longer deal cycles. While spending (and discounts) typically decreased after Q5, brands that held firm saw excellent returns. You can change your discounts after the holiday and focus on low-inventory items or products that didn't sell well.
Q5 or what we call the “fifth quarter”, are the weeks between Christmas and mid-January. It’s when customers have gift cards and holiday money they are ready to spend or are starting with their New Year’s resolutions. This is an important period for health and fitness brands. Remember to save the budget for this period as well.
Get Your Ad Creative Ready on Time
From our experience, having multiple products in your creative brings better results. Single-product creative had a 3.2 ROAS while multiple-product creative had a 4.9 ROAS. This means product bundles performed better in ads, with a 53% higher ROAS when multiple products were showcased versus single-product ads.
Tasteful holiday creative can go a long way. Aim to entice purchases and callout opportunities for stocking stuffers or last-minute purchases. Focus your creative, influencer partnerships, and bundle building around gifting. Collaborate with micro-influencers for gifting advice, how-to videos, and to tap into trends. Keep in mind that non-promo holiday evergreen performs better than regular holiday ads.
As you work on prepping your creative for tentpole events, remember that the most effective ad creative combinations are Product/Benefit, Text/Text, Model/Application, and UGC/Lifestyle.
To Conclude
If you haven’t already started preparing, do so now. Apply our tips and tricks to your Amazon October Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday strategies to capitalize on the lead-up and aftermath of these major sales events.
We recommend watching our latest webinar "Fueling Revenue Growth for a Profitable Q4” to learn more about ways to boost your growth and profitability in the upcoming months.
Anja Pendic is the Content Marketing Specialist at Blue Wheel, where she plays a key role in creating and managing content for the company’s website. With extensive experience in digital marketing, copywriting, and social media management, she crafts engaging blogs, case studies, and landing pages. Anja has worked across various platforms, including Amazon, Meta, and TikTok, delivering impactful content and strategies.
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